Tell HN: Dropbox user age verification feature can lock your account • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox user age verification feature can lock your account

#71

Post by gitrog » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 8:53 PM UTC

taylorhughes wrote: post #60

Note that this is due to legal requirements around discovering a user's age in a "neutral" way, in order to block under-13 users (or varying other ages depending on global jurisdiction). This is called a "neutral age screen". The screen cannot indicate that there will be a lockout, or underage users would just say they were older to get around it. It sucks, but most apps of a certain size and liability profile have t…

Does the law also state that you can't fix the date afterwards, or that once entered verification is required? It's a paid account, they've already got my credit card details. And how does it make sense that I was born 2 weeks ago?

I don't know, I felt really stupid when I entered the wrong year but since then I've grown increasingly frustrated by how poorly this feature has been implemented.

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox user age verification feature can lock your account

#72

Post by BeFlatXIII » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:04 PM UTC

Arrath wrote: post #58

xeromal wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheating on your DOB is a rite of passage on the internet. I did it in the 90s. I think my old hotmail account still has my mom's bday in it

Why yes I was born on the 20th of April, way back in 1969, why do you ask?

I’ve been a 41-year-old single dad ever since I was a nine year old.

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox user age verification feature can lock your account

#73

Post by Brian_K_White » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:33 PM UTC

felipellrocha wrote: post #13

reset-password wrote: post #3

I've gotten into the habit of being born on January 1, 1970. Seems like a good enough date to me.

I'm born on January 1st,

Hah, now you say it, I realize the distribution must look really funny. Wow whole lotta people born on jan 01! And stranger yet, no curve.

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox user age verification feature can lock your account

#74

Post by kyleee » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:36 PM UTC

kingcharles wrote: post #67

kissgyorgy wrote: post #24

I found a Dropbox alternative: https://nextcloud.com/ I'm never going back. Way better in every aspect than Dropbox.

Spent several minutes trying to find the price. It's hidden under the "Support" menu for no reason that makes sense. Looks like it starts at €3600 per year for the basic plan, but you can't buy it, you have to "get an offer" which is newspeak for have a salesperson call you for several hours to upsell you. Definitely not a replacement for my $14/month Dropbox account.

that's enterprise support obviously, but yes it's more legwork to host nextcloud than using dropbox

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox user age verification feature can lock your account

#75

Post by cdjk » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:52 PM UTC

xeromal wrote: post #55

roywashere wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kid made a presentation for his class using Google Docs, then filled in his day of birth on his new phone when setting it up, then got locked out of his account. He was 12 at the time. Also, his class had a WhatsApp group chat in which school info was shared. This was kind of weird because it meant that all 12 year olds in the group must have cheated their dates of birth, because otherwise they could not have had…

Cheating on your DOB is a rite of passage on the internet. I did it in the 90s. I think my old hotmail account still has my mom's bday in it

One of the main results of COPPA is teaching children to lie about their age on the internet.

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox user age verification feature can lock your account

#76

Post by astura » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:53 PM UTC

xeromal wrote: post #55

roywashere wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kid made a presentation for his class using Google Docs, then filled in his day of birth on his new phone when setting it up, then got locked out of his account. He was 12 at the time. Also, his class had a WhatsApp group chat in which school info was shared. This was kind of weird because it meant that all 12 year olds in the group must have cheated their dates of birth, because otherwise they could not have had…

Cheating on your DOB is a rite of passage on the internet. I did it in the 90s. I think my old hotmail account still has my mom's bday in it

90s? COPPA didn't go into effect until Q2 2000.

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox user age verification feature can lock your account

#77

Post by cdjk » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:55 PM UTC

willcipriano wrote: post #51

xjay wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coder sees "We need feature X". Coder implements feature X, marks it as complete; next. So they have the coder (implementer) role covered, but not the "programmer" role ("thinker"/feature designer). Leslie Lamport - Thinking Above the Code: ~ A lot of people like to think that they're thinking, but they don't really do much thinking. [1] Evidently, there was no expectation that the coder/implementer was supposed to d…

This got past the undoubtedly upwards of nine product managers/business analysts/directors/etc on the team as well. Blaming the low man on that totem pole in a organization thick with management like that is silly. None of the "idea men" had the idea of "what if someone's cat walks across the keyboard when we ask them their birthday". That's the embarrassing failure here.

This could actually be a feature and not a bug from a legal perspective. If they are blocking anyone who gives any indication that they are under 13 then it might be easier to show compliance with COPPA.

This has made me wonder at times if the best way to get my data delete from someplace is to talk to customer service and repeatedly say that I'm twelve.

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox user age verification feature can lock your account

#78

Post by forgotpwd16 » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 9:58 PM UTC

There was a Twitter hoax going around which had users put a birthday making them <13yo effectively locking them out of their account. It was that widespread that the company made a tweet warning about it.

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox user age verification feature can lock your account

#79

Post by xeromal » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 10:00 PM UTC

astura wrote: post #76

xeromal wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheating on your DOB is a rite of passage on the internet. I did it in the 90s. I think my old hotmail account still has my mom's bday in it

90s? COPPA didn't go into effect until Q2 2000.

Sorry, I was 10 so I don't have the best memory of the era. Lol.

And I still probably lied about my age in the 90s. I doubt StarCraft allowed 8 year olds to play on battlenet

Re: Tell HN: Dropbox user age verification feature can lock your account

#80

Post by jrockway » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 10:05 PM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #62

__david__ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, I do that as well. They're almost always menus and so I just pick the bottom-most box. Steam thinks I'm 120 years old.

i wonder though if doing that doesn't risk detection since it's pretty obviously false.

I am not sure if I care about detection. They will obviously shut down your account if you're too young, but they don't have any legal demand to shut down your account if you're too old, so they probably won't bother.

Most of the places where I see these things are not services like Dropbox where I'm a customer, but for things like alcohol marketing websites. "To view our collection, you must be over 21. Type your age to verify." The law requires them to ban me for being under 21, but doesn't require them to ban me for being "too old", so they probably don't bother. (I imagine the hot topic at meetings is when they provide a year dropdown, what's the oldest year they should add. If the world's oldest person wants to visit their website, that should be allowed.)